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From the Editor

Last month, I discussed “New Wave” SF, the phenomenon of the
“Mary-Sue”, asserted that the player-character in any RPG was, in a
sense, ‘the ultimate “Mary-Sue”’, and closed by saying that
Traveller gives the player more leeway to
play a character whose prior career conformed more closely to the
player’s tastes and inclinations.

The leeway comes from the very design of
Traveller’s character generation system; the point is less to
build a “Scout character” (or a character specifically from any other
service, including ’Other’) than it is to build a set of skills. Careers
offer more than that—they serve as a framework to hang a character
biography on, for example—but it’s principally the skills that are used
in play, and if you get into a situation where using a handgun is
necessary to salvage the operation, it doesn’t matter whether you got
the handgun skill from being a Marine or being a Law Enforcer.

The conformance to the player’s tastes also comes from the design of
the system—it is normally the player who chooses the character’s career,
and often the specific track through the career. Sometimes, house rules
can even grant the player extra control over specific skills gained, and
then, of course, there are the wide variety of third-party and ‘house’
careers as well. All this, taken together, enables the ‘ultimate
“Mary-Sue”-ness’ of characters.

So how is the player-character ‘the ultimate “Mary-Sue”’? “Mary-Sue”
characters are most often seen when authors insert themselves into
badly-written fan fiction, usually as the character that manages to
heroically solve the problems, or at least deliver the key insight and
earn the eternal gratitude of the hero. Player-characters are in the
campaign to solve problems—the campaign is, after all, a series of
problems seeking solutions. I have known very few campaigns where the
players could and would take the time to analyze how the character would
act, divorcing the decision from themselves; rather, the general case
was that the player was reacting, and using the character as an
‘alter-ego’—not really asking “how would a trained and experienced
Marine react in this situation?”, but “how would I react if I had these
skills in this situation?” That’s the essence of the
“Mary-Sue”—self-insertion—and I’d say that it’s both inevitable, and
necessary if the game session is going to be fun.

I’ve discussed this as though Traveller
is unique in allowing this. To some extent, all role-playing games have
the “Mary-Sue” factor, but what really makes
Traveller the game that stands out in this respect—in my opinion,
anyway—is the whole ‘plausible realism’ thing. Moreso than in other
games, it’s possible for the player to visualize himself in the
situation, and apply not just the character’s skills, but the player’s
own direct experience and knowledge—even though you’re ‘not supposed’ to
do that if the character wouldn’t have that knowledge or experience.
Doing so, though, makes the Traveller
experience even more ‘immersive’—it’s you that’s doing it, not
your character—which also adds to the fun.